One of the most important areas of speed
improvement is the reduction of drag. (DUH!) Not surprisingly, you see lots of
the recent plastic plane designs with very small cowl openings and quite a lot
of emphasis on the airflow through the cowling for engine cooling. LoPresti is
famous for their cowling mods and STC's for a number of aircraft.

Here is a mod by Beechcraft Debonair owner and
Beech parts guru, Kevin
O. that essentially smoothes out the buffeting and turbulence created in the
bottom of the engine bay. This increases the airflow (a good thing for cooling
your engine) and reduced the drag created by the air essentially being
"stuck" in the cowling and moving slowly while it bumps into all those
ribs and walls in the bottom of the Bonanza engine bay.

BTW, Kevin reports about a ~5 KTAS increase in
speed with his engine bay floor pans and curved firewall lip.

Here is additional background info provided by
Kevin which was the inspiration for his mod:

Charlie Nogle ( of T34 fame) told me he had a STC to put cowl flaps on
T34s---but they noticed that when they replaced the large augmenters ( big round
tubes sticking out into the airstream about a foot) with the cowl flaps. It
slowed them down by 5 knots. They figured out that the amount of air taken in at
the air inlets was greater than could be extracted by the outlets----the excess
air burbled out of the front of the air intakes causing disruption of the air
flow around the front of the airplane--thus slowing it down. This is why a small
oil leak in your engine puts a mist of oil on your windshield---the excess air (
along with the oil) burbles out the front of the air intakes.

I have a cousin with a PHD in Hydrology who helped me design the changes in
the bottom of the cowling---and yes--the rolled piece of metal at the aft bottom
is a important piece of the project. I gained a little speed--but more
important--The CHTs on my IO550 deb never get above 340 in the climb or run
above 300 in cruise( LOP)--and thats flying in HOT Oklahoma summers--I also have
DeShannon
baffles---and I do NOT have cowl flaps.

Look at Cirrus airplanes and the fast home builts--they all have small air
intakes and larger fixed outlets

Gami experimented with making the air intakes smaller as did Mike Smith. I
think they both decided that the gain was not worth the cost

I remove the panels at every annual to inspect the area under them----takes
about 10 minutes.

On a 100 degree day on climb out--no cylinder gets over 350 degrees--at
cruise--no cylinder is above 300 ( most around the 280 range) My take on
this--you want the same amount of air exiting the cowl from the cowl flap area
as you have going in through the cowl intakes--if you have a imbalance--the air
burbles out through the air intakes causing drag--thus lower speed..

SO--if you increase the air removal from the lower deck, lowering its
pressure--you draw more air past the cylinders--cooling them--and as a added
benefit, less air burbles out the front causing drag.

You assume there is only a limited amount of air coming in through the air
intakes, and you want all of it to go by the fins on the cylinders--by filling
every small hole with silicone.--BUT , My thought--the real problem is the lower
deck--the upper deck has more than enough air pressure to cool ( remember the
excess coming out of the air intakes)--the problem is getting it out of the
lower deck. If you lower the pressure on the lower deck by making the air easier
to leave the cowling--more air will go by the fins. Problem solved without the
use of silicone.

A simple way to look at this--think of a dam with a hydroelectric generator.
Even if the dam leaks a lot--the difference in pressure will still spin the
generator as water flows past. BUT if the river gets dammed up down stream and
starts backing up and the water level is almost the same on both sides of the
dam--little water will move past the generator--THE PROBLEM WITH BONANZA
COWLINGS---the air down stream can't get out fast enough! Cowl flaps were a Band-Aid
fix---almost none of the new plastic planes have cowl flaps.

Have a cousin with a PHD in Hydraulics ---told me that if I smoothed out the
flow of air leaving the cowling---could get like a 30 % increase of flow.--if
you look at the pictures below--you can see the plates in the bottom of the
cowling that smoothes the flow of air---also notice the rounded plate on the
lower part of the fire wall --by making that point a rounded corner instead of a
square corner--you reduce burbling--thus flow of air.

BWTFDIK---I'm only a Dentist.

Phil: "So, a nice radius on the outlet from the back wall of the engine
compartment, if it didn't reduce the area of the outlet in the direction of
flow, would have the effect of increasing the outlet flow area, helping both the
inlet-outlet ratio and the total throughput."

Kevin: My thoughts exactly---you can see the radius on the bottom pan curving
down directing the flow out--and the curve coming off the back wall doing the
same thing --would love to make the intake smaller.

I don't consider the cowl flaps on the Bonanza a poor design but rather a
simple weight saving, parts saving design. They were more than adequate for the
original design with the "E185" engines and are also adequate for the
IO-520 and IO-550 engines.

The issue with cooling is not the cowl flaps but rather the baffling and the
nose bowl opening.

Considering that on a typical light single engine reciprocating powered
aircraft cooling drag is estimated to be on the order of 30% of the total drag,
improving the airflow in the engine compartment will improve the aerodynamic
performance.

Atlantic Aero has done this with their conversion. That conversion uses a
different engine with a tuned intake manifold above the engine case, completely
redesigned nose inlets which utilize NACA inlets, and new carbon fiber cowl and
cowl doors and a tuned exhaust.

I did a level flight performance flight test on the original A-36
modification. That flight test showed a 10 KTAS increase over book values
(IO-550B). However, not all of the increase was attributable to a decrease in
cooling drag. You can read the flight test article here:

If I ever do a 550 conversion, it will be this one. Beech should buy this
design from Atlantic Aero.

The nose bowl design on the Bonanza brings way too much air into the engine
compartment and poorly manages it once it is there.

Much of the air that enters the engine compartment actually exits back OUT
the FRONT of the opening behind and in the vicinity of the propeller spinner. (I
have tuffed in flight studies that show this.) On the other hand, did the
designers know about this in the mid 1940s? Probably not.

Good cooling design brings just enough air into the engine compartment to
provide adequate cooling for the worst case and then efficiently directs that
air to cooling the engine.

Having said that, aside from buying either the D'Shannon or the Liquid Air
baffles, what can you do to improve the cooling?

The fundamental objective is to make sure that the air goes through the
cylinder fins (and oil cooler for the aircraft with rear mounted oil coolers).
Keep this fundamental objective in mind.

The flexible material on the baffles of most of the Bonanzas, and other
aircraft as well, that I see is in terrible shape. Spend the money and time to
replace the flexible material. Shape it with the above fundamental objective in
mind.

Fill every single hole through which air can leak past the cylinders without
actually going through the fins with GE Silicone II. Be anal about this.

Two of the largest areas for leakage are around the inner cylinder baffles
and between the #2 cylinder and the rear mounted oil cooler.

To get to the inner cylinder baffles you will have to remove the intake and
exhaust manifolds. Once that is done, get a large mirror and a good light and
look at the cylinder bases. You will see that the inner cylinder baffle leaves a
good size hole(s) between the baffles and the engine case. A lot of air leaks
through those holes.

Fill the holes with silicone.

Fill every piece of metal baffle that has a cut out for a nut or bolt with
silicone.

Look closely at that area between the #2 cylinder and the rear mounted oil
cooler. Again there is a hole between the metal baffle and the engine case. Fill
it with silicone. There is also a hole on the outboard side that needs
attention.

Continue looking for "air" holes and filling them with silicone.

A good way to do this is to stick a trouble light under the engine in a dark
hangar, get a step ladder and look straight down at the engine. If you can see
clear light, then you have identified yet another hole and need to fill that
hole with silicone. Keep looking.

Now turn your attention to the top of the engine. Typically it is a mess with
wires, hoses, fuel lines etc. running everywhere.

The fundamental objective here is to get the magnetos, the wires, etc.

organized and as high in the engine compartment as
possible without interfering with the cowl.

Typically the magnetos are positioned down very close to the top of the
engine case. These things need attention. Get an A&P to rotate the magnetos
up as far as they will go and still meet the timing specifications.

Sort out the spark plug wires and elevate them on standoffs. Mine are at
least 3" or more above the cylinder fins. You can see what I mean here in
the engine images: http://www.nar-associates.com/bonanza/bonanza.htm(click on the image for a larger image.)

Notice, elevating the magnetos and the wires allows the incoming air to
cleanly, well relatively so, pass under the wires, hit the rear engine baffle
and be directed downward through the cylinders rather than having to
"fight" its way through a tangle of wires or past the magnetos before
passing through the cylinder fins. The high mounted magnetos actually help
deflect the air downward of the #2 cylinder and through the rear mounted oil
cooler.

All this will help but it takes effort and attention to detail.

Most A&Ps won't do this or the customer does not want to pay for them to
do it.

'Nuff said,

Dave Rogers

E33A, A-36, W29

So, get to work with your A&P/IA to
discuss this potential cooling mod to your Bonanza. It could be especially
helpful to you folks with IO-550s.